


A Day in the Life

by twistedchick



Series: Gamblers' Choice [7]
Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:04:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael asks for a transfer, but whether he's actually left is another matter altogether.  Meanwhile, Nikita learns more about her own past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life

"Michael. Come in."

As the doors to Madeleine's dungeon closed behind him automatically, Michael took a seat across from Madeleine at her desk.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" she inquired.

"I'd like a transfer to another unit." His face looked as noncommittal as usual.

"Why?"

"I would be more effective somewhere else."

"You're not ineffectual where you are." Madeleine studied Michael's face. His stillness seemed marred, disturbed. "Does this have to do with Nikita?"

He looked away from her and back again. "No."

She knew from his response that he was lying. "Are you sure? Is there a problem?"

"No problem."

Another lie, but his armor had cracked enough for her to see the truth. Michael had to be upset by Nikita's relationship with Birkoff and Walter.

"Would you rather have Nikita transferred somewhere else?" He looked past her, and the crack in his armor disappeared. His face grew remote. "No."

So. He does care for her happiness. This may be useful to us, but only if he can get past this point.

"At the moment we're not approving any transfers, but I'll speak to Operations about it for the future."

Michael nodded. He rose to leave. Madeleine's voice stopped him.

"I trust you will have no problem working with your team in the meantime."

He nodded again, and left. She sat back in her chair and observed the closing door until it was completely shut, then returned to her work.

***

Operations stood at his glass wall, surveying the floor where the computer analysts worked and the row of offices beyond them. Michael came from the direction of Madeleine's office, walked past Birkoff without noticing him, barely hesitated when he saw Nikita talking with Walter by the armory, but went on into his own office, where he sat down and stared at his computer. Operations turned away from the window.

Michael had become a problem. He still fulfilled his function in achieving Section One's goals, but more and more he seemed to be losing his hold over Nikita. And as he lost this, he lost his control over himself. He had brawled with Jurgen, and Operations had looked the other way. But that had happened months ago and Michael was still on edge.

It had gone on too long.

Ops could sympathize with Nikita's evident desire for a romantic relationship; he was actually relieved that she had chosen partners who were not other cold ops but support staff. There was no problem with that kind of relationship, especially since it had gone through the proper channels. He had approved the paperwork that Walter had filed for the three of them a couple of months ago, after Nikita's sterling performance in the rape crisis clinic mission. Their three-cornered relationship seemed to benefit all its partners and Section; he saw no need to break up a winning combination.

That still left the problem of Michael.

Madeleine entered the room, and Ops turned away from the window with relief, hoping for some new disaster that would take his mind away from staff troubles.

"Michael wants a transfer to another team," she said.

Ops groaned. "Did he say why?"

"No. He didn't have to." Madeleine walked to the glass wall and looked down. Nikita had left Walter's station and stopped by Birkoff's desk briefly on her way to the workout room. Michael glanced up once as she walked past his office; when she showed no response he looked back down at his computer.

"What did you tell him?"

"That we weren't granting any transfers at present, but that I would inform you of his request." She shook her head slightly. "He's more of a problem than Nikita is."

Ops looked down at Michael for a moment, studying his behavior. "Give him the transfer."

Madeleine looked up, startled. "On what grounds?"

"Effectiveness. Keep him within this base of Section, but assign him to work with Rick and that new material, Soraya. That should concentrate his energies." Ops let his mouth curve into a smile, not a pleasant one. Soraya was, if anything, more of a temperament problem than Nikita had been at the start -- but Soraya had been in Section One for two years now. She was a deadly killer with any kind of firearm, a perfect assassin with the temperament of a diva. Until recently she had been trained at a different base, but her trainer had died during a mission. As a result she had been relocated to Section One.

Madeleine nodded slowly. "That might work. What are you planning for Nikita?"

"How is she progressing as a hypnotist?"

"Very well. It's a good use of her empathy."

Ops nodded. "Continue her training in that, including interrogations."

"Anyone in particular?"

"Someone from her past has been captured. I think it would be useful for us to observe her at work on him. He has acted as a courier for Fraktur and can tell us about its people and location."

"Fraktur." She thought a moment. "That's the paramilitary group that recruits from ex-police. Yes. A good choice for her."

***

Madeleine's office, a few minutes later.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, sit down, Nikita."

Nikita sat on the chair that Michael had occupied only an hour earlier. Madeleine gave herself a few seconds to appreciate the irony of that before continuing. "Is there a problem, Madeleine?"

Quick girl. "No problem. We have a task for you that will use your hypnotism training."

Nikita's eyebrows rose, and she looked interested.

"We want you to interrogate a prisoner in Room Six. He has been a courier for Fraktur, a new paramilitary group, and we'd like you to find out everything you can about them. And anything else you think would be useful to us."

"What's his name?"

Madeleine smiled. "We don't really know that either. He came to us as 'Charles.' I trust you will find his real name. You may make use of Housekeeping, of course."

Nikita nodded. "Anything else?"

She knows it's a test. Good. "Nothing else. Report back to me here when you are done."

***

Operations turned on the audio monitor on the main floor. Michael and Soraya, a slender Eurasian woman, walked toward Walter's area. Even from a distance Michael looked perturbed.

"There's no need to test my weapons accuracy. My scores are excellent." Soraya sounded petulant.

"Then you won't mind showing me what you can do." Michael's calm voice belied the narrow line appearing in his forehead. Ops could sense a headache coming on even from where he watched.

"It's a waste of time, mine and yours."

Michael stopped her and turned to face her directly. "If you had something more important lined up for today, it's cancelled. You're my material, and you're going to do target practice until I say you're done."

"Oh, is that how it is?" She was cocky and hostile. Ops felt amused; Soraya reminded him so much of a younger Nikita, but with a harder shell of arrogance, coupled with something more unpredictable.

"Yes." They had reached Walter's workshop. "Walter, this is Soraya. We need the weapons training assortment for target practice."

Walter started to greet Soraya -- still a sucker for a pretty new face, even with Nikita around, Ops noticed -- and Soraya turned her back on him as if he were wallpaper. Walter stiffened. His eyes slid toward Michael and back to Soraya. No reaction from Michael. He put the requested weapons and ammunition on the counter with a snap, went into the armory and drew down the metal divider between them. Civility, no rudeness -- Walter was seldom uncivil -- but an emotional chill that nearly frosted the divider.

Michael picked up the weapons for each of them, handing Soraya her pistol, automatic rifle, and ammo, and took a few steps toward the firing range. He stopped instantly as he heard the clicking of a clip loaded into a pistol.

"What's to keep me from shooting you right here?" Soraya demanded. She had the pistol up, aimed at Michael's head.

"Your continued desire to live," Michael replied without turning around. His hands clenched and loosened, moving subtly into a configuration that would allow him to disarm her as he turned.

Birkoff, at his computer, looked over and saw them. He glanced up at Ops, who stood watching the floor; Ops gave him no reaction. Birkoff reached under the desk toward the emergency button that would bring Containment staff into the area. Ops shook his head slightly, and Birkoff let his hand slide away from the button. Birkoff looked past the situation and saw Walter, aiming a silenced pistol through a slot in the divider, with Soraya fully in his sights.

"What if I don't want to live?" She walked up behind him and brushed the back of his neck with the cold mouth of the pistol.

"We will accommodate you," Michael said. He swept a foot back, hooked it around one of her ankles, and dropped below her guard. In a second he had taken her down to the floor and disarmed her.

Walter's pistol disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

"Do you want to live?" Michael inquired. He straddled Soraya, holding her down with his weight, one hand forcing her arm to the floor, the other at her throat.

She nodded, with difficulty.

"Then go down to the target range." He stood, emptied her pistol and returned it to her. "If you're trying to impress me, it's not working."

She came to her feet easily, in a feline move that looked as practiced as any of Nikita's athletic leaps. Taking the pistol back, she looked him up and down, snorted, and headed in the proper direction. Michael followed her, impassive as usual.

In his chair, Birkoff relaxed. Walter opened the divider and returned to what he'd been working on. Ops watched Michael and Soraya move out of sight. Certainly, Michael could deal with her; the question was how long he would be able to tolerate the implied comparison of Soraya and Nikita. He would, of course, work at his job as long as Ops and Madeleine considered it useful for him to be there -- though all of them knew he was more valuable as a cold op than as an expensive babysitter for material with an attitude.

***

Nikita stood outside Room Six, breathed deeply, drew herself to her full height, in heels, and opened the door. This was one of the larger hexagonal rooms in the base; she'd used it for tumbling practice a few months earlier. Its use for interrogations could indicate several things: increased business, a decreased need for this room for workout space, or the possibility that Housekeeping wanted to test some of its latest equipment.

She hoped it wasn't the last reason.

Charles sat in an interrogation chair, with his back to the door. He looked muscular, dark, with scraggly dreadlocks; his arms were so heavy they almost didn't fit into the restraints. She didn't want to look at his face first; she had found that she got better results if she took a different approach at times.

"What's your name?" she asked, moving silently to stand directly behind him.

He jumped, as far as a man can jump who is restrained at wrists and ankles and sitting in a metal chair. "Charles de Foucault."

"Try again. Charles de Foucault was a saint in the African desert." Nikita silently blessed the hours of world history she'd been reading, and her memory for odd names. "He's been dead for decades."

"Just Charles, then."

"All right, just Charles then. My name is Nikita. I want you to tell me what you know about Fraktur."

"It's a typeface used in German."

"Very good." She began to pace slowly around the room and paused in front of him. "What else is it?"

He kept silent.

She stopped in her pacing and looked him in the face. "What else is it, Charles?"

His voice emerged in a strangled whisper. "No. You're supposed to be dead."

"As you can see, I'm not." She kept talking to disguise the shock she felt. "Talk to me, Charles. I'm your only chance at living long enough to see the light of day again."

Of all the people they could have her interrogate, of all those thousands of conspirators and infiltrators and terrorists, he was the last one she'd expect to see.

"I'm quite alive, Charles. So are you, for now. Talk to me. Tell me about Fraktur."

His bravado intact, he started, "I'm just a courier. I don't know anything."

"Tell me what you do know. We'll go on from there."

"All I was supposed to do was take the package from Munich to New York, pick up another and take it to Paris. That's what I did."

"Uh-huh. That's why you were found in Brussels selling cocaine to an undercover cop?"

"Who said that? It wasn't cocaine, it was --"

"Is this what you were doing back in the city four years ago, the day you stabbed a cop and handed me the knife?" Nikita's voice dropped, a trick she'd learned was more effective than raising it. "Were you trying to sell him smack or crack, or did you have other business with Officer Frank Garland, Charles?" Her voice rose, slowly, as she moved in front of him and filled his vision until he could see nothing but her, wherever he looked. "What's the deal, Charles?"

"You've cleaned up nicer than I expected for a street whore."

She slapped him, hitting him with such force that his head banged against the back of the chair. "Such language isn't tolerated. I think I'll come back in a little while when you're more inclined to cooperate."

His lip bled, dripping onto his shirt. "Fine. Whatever you say."

"Yes. It is whatever I say here. I can have you die very easily, very quickly, or it can take a very long time. It's up to you." She pushed a button on the side of the room, and within seconds Housekeeping stood at the door, carrying metal cases of tools and persuasive devices, eager to experiment in order to further its knowledge of the limits to human pain.

"I'll be back in five minutes. I want him to talk." Housekeeping looked pleased. It enjoyed a challenge.

***

Madeleine adjusted her monitor to view the shooting gallery. Michael had put Soraya through her paces, apparently finding her scores not quite as good as she expected. He had the target moved further back, took aim and shot through the center of the bull's- eyes on the head, chest and belly easily.

"Let's see you match this," he said, bring his arm up and uncocking his pistol.

Soraya shot him an unreadable glance, lined up on the target and drilled the same holes Michael had made.

Madeleine smiled to herself. Good. It was working.

***

When Nikita walked back into the room, Charles raised his head to look at her. "Strong-arm stuff is the refuge of failures." He was factual, not defiant.

"Oh? That's why you use it, I suppose." She dimmed the lights and set a focus spot a foot in front of Charles' face, where she dangled a crystal. "Look at the crystal."

"Mind games. I thought you'd do better than that." His eyes were already following the shifting patterns of refracted light.

"Just watch the crystal. Let your mind relax." Her voice was quieter, already pulling him in. She counted down to make sure he was under, then started quietly.

"It's 1995, and you're standing in an alley with a police officer. What's his name?"

"Frank Garland."

"Why are you meeting him?"

"They wanted me to bring him in."

"What happened?"

"He said he wasn't coming, he'd changed his mind."

"What happened next?"

"He knew too much. They wouldn't like that."

"What did you do?"

"I pulled a blade on him when he wasn't looking. Made sure he couldn't talk."

"What happened then?"

"I saw someone."

"Who did you see?"

"Scraggly street kid. She was running from someone, and she ran into me."

"And then?"

"I handed her the knife and I ran."

Nikita took a deep breath, let it out. She knew she could kill Charles then and there, with no rebuke from Ops, as long as she learned the rest of the information they'd sent her to get. The taste of revenge was tantalizing. She swallowed, shook it off, and took another breath to steady herself.

"Tell me about Fraktur."

***

"His name is Anton LeVecque, and he's a recruiter for Fraktur. He goes after disaffected civil servants working in positions of responsibility, depending on whatever skills Fraktur needs at the time. Police are a primary source, but so are public works employees with experience in explosives, ex-military types, and systems analysts." Nikita's eyes were shadowed, Madeleine noticed, but she showed no other sign of distress.

"What was he doing in Brussels?"

"Besides being stupid? He was supposed to contact a former KGB agent named Dachovski, to bring him in. LeVecque was a little short of cash, and rather than go to a money machine he decided to score some on the street."

Madeleine nodded. "Very good. You have a description of Dachovski? Give that to Birkoff. Thank you, Nikita. I have nothing further for you today."

Nikita nodded. "Will LeVecque be cancelled?'"

"Probably. That hasn't been determined yet." Madeleine searched Nikita's face. "I sense that his death wouldn't bother you much."

Nikita looked back at her from the door. "No, Madeleine, it wouldn't bother me at all." This was only partially a lie; the fact that she wanted LeVecque painfully dead bothered her a lot. She left without looking back.

***

Nikita went to the gym, got on the treadmill and ran. She knew from experience that she needed hard exercise to burn off the claustrophobic feeling of the interrogation room; her emotions flowed too close to the surface at times like this for her to feel safe running on the streets or in the park where she usually went.

The door opened, and Michael came in with a woman she'd seen only from a distance, Soraya. From across the room she could sense the hormonal combination of anger and desire that virtually made the air vibrate between the newcomers. Soraya wanted to prove she was better than Michael; Nikita could see this in her stance and attitude. Michael, on the other hand, remained remote but she noticed him tapping a finger on the side of his leg as he walked -- a signal of annoyance equivalent to Ops blowing his stack in his glass office.

Interested, Nikita observed them with sideward glances at a mirrored wall as she ran. They ignored her, moved on into a padded octagon room and closed the door. Soon she heard thuds and thumps coming from the room, the sound of bodies thrown against walls and falling on the floor, always coming back up for more.

The door opened.

"Nikita?" Michael said. "Have you got a moment?"

"Yes."

"I'd like you to come in on this combat techniques exercise."

"Certainly." She retied her ponytail into a smaller loop, harder for an opponent to grab, and mopped herself with a towel on her way to the room.

"Soraya, this is Nikita. I'd like you to try to take her down."

Without warning, Soraya whipped an arm toward Nikita to snare her. Nikita flipped the end of the towel in her face, blinding her, and caught Soraya's ankle in her hand as she kicked. Soraya found herself on the floor. She bounced up and started again. Nikita warded her off, watched for an opening, and let herself be grabbed -- so she could walk up the wall, flip herself over Soraya's head, and crash her to the floor again, knocking the wind out of her.

She got off the woman immediately, and offered her a hand to get up. Soraya took it, trying to pull Nikita down, but found herself again on the floor with someone sitting heavily on her.

Nikita got up again. This was starting to be a bore. She dropped the damp towel she'd used by the door and got ready for the next attempt.

Soraya leaned up on one elbow and glared at Michael. "I'm a shooter, not a wrestler."

"You're what we tell you to be."

"If my hands are injured I won't be as good an assassin."

Michael pulled her to her feet. "You have every incentive to succeed, considering the cost of failure."

"Section recruited me for my shooting skills, not for this. I want to talk to Ops." Soraya's voice rose. "I know my rights."

"By all means," Nikita said, getting out of her way. "Go talk to Ops about your rights. I'd like a tape of that meeting; I need a good laugh." She felt sorry for Soraya.

Michael spoke to Nikita as Soraya slammed the door. "Sorry to have inconvenienced you."

"No problem." She rubbed the back of her neck, which felt sore from skidding on the floor. "Who is she?"

"My new material." Michael's face was stony.

She felt the sense of this in her chest before the words reached her mind. "You've been transferred."

He nodded.

"And you weren't going to say a word, even with all we've been through," she said in a tone that spread sarcasm like peanut butter on the words. "Good luck." She opened the door and walked away.

Michael stared after her as the door closed. He picked up the towel she'd dropped, raised it to his face, and smelled her scent, that indefinable Nikita fragrance that came from no one else, and for a moment his face softened. But when he left, he looked as he always did, and he dropped the used towel casually in a bin.

***

Nikita had been home for only a few minutes when the phone rang.

"Hey, doll, you okay?" Walter's voice rasped. "You looked pretty bad when you left."

"I'll be all right. Rough interrogation."

"Yeah, I heard. Too bad they let the bastard go. Some guys just shouldn't get off."

"Let him go?"

"Yeah. We need a mole in Fraktur, and he's all we've got."

She swallowed her anger. "So Section is sending a stupid, known drug dealer to act as a double agent? Ops must be crazy."

"Well, you know how it goes." His voice softened. "You want company tonight, or not?"

"Thanks, but no. I think I need some time."

"You take care of yourself. Want me to tell Birkoff too?"

"Don't bother. I think he already had plans. Some movie he wanted to see?"

"Right, something called "Dark Star." Okay, see you tomorrow."

"See you." She hung up the phone.

***

Madeleine sat back in her chair, her fingers steepled, listening to Ops talk about his plans, and let her mind drift just a little. She knew when he reached a point where she would have to say something she'd be back on his words, but she wanted to think about what she'd seen on the monitors that day.

"...And she had the nerve to come and argue with me about her rights."

Only one cold op would do that, and it wasn't Nikita.

"If you recall, you gave her those rights. She's voluntary, not conscripted like the others. She chose to come in with us when things got too hot for her on the outside, and she's a good enough tactician and shooter to make it on the outside again without us."

Ops frowned. "I'll never understand why you agreed to that."

"It seemed the best thing at the time. We needed a shooter. Her work is excellent."

"Her attitude is lousy," he grumbled.

"Does anyone else know she's voluntary?"

"Not unless she tells them. It's not in her file."

Ops started to smile. "You're reversing the usual controls on her, aren't you."

"If it works, I do it. She must realize by now that she knows far too much to be allowed back on the outside."

***

The knock at the door startled Nikita out of her daydreams. She couldn't sleep, and she had spent what felt like hours drinking hot cocoa and staring out at the cityscape, seeing instead a narrow dirty alley and the blood that dripped onto her hands from a knife.

"Who is it?"

"Marco."

She opened the door, and Marco O'Brien came in, dripping wet.

"Thanks. Oh, this feels wonderful. I couldn't get a cab, and it's pouring like the backside of Niagara out there." He rubbed his hands together to warm them, and she handed him her hot cup of cocoa to hold. She took his wet coat and hat and put them in the bathtub, and turned on the fan. On her way back she stopped at a closet and pulled out a long, heavy bathrobe she'd bought in a men's department because the apartment was cold in the winter.

"Here, if you want to get out of your wet things, put this on. You're soaked. I can throw your clothes in the dryer before you leave."

"Thanks." He headed for the bathroom, handing her back an empty mug. She went to the stove and started heating more milk.

When they both had mugs of cocoa to drink, and Marco's clothes were whirling merrily in her small dryer, she sat down in her usual seat at the end of the couch. He dropped into the chair nearby, groaning gratefully.

"What brings you here tonight?" she asked.

"Anton LeVecque, the man you questioned today."

"You heard?"

"Birkoff."

She nodded. He must have tapped in on the monitor just in time to catch LeVecque's admission that he'd framed her. "I'll be okay," she said. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Section let him go, as a mole. Don't go after him."

"Too late."

Her eyes flew to his face. "Oh, no."

"I didn't do it." His eyes stayed on the mug in his hands. "I'll admit I was tempted." He looked up at her. "I found him on the way here."

"Who did it?"

He shook his head and looked up at her. "I think Michael did. I saw him walking away from where I saw the body."

Nikita frowned. "He must have thought it was a set-up."

"It looked like that to me, too. If LeVecque could identify you, he'd put Section in jeopardy."

"Yes, but ... sometimes Operations does things like that as part of a larger plan." She shuddered involuntarily. "I'm glad you didn't do it. Chasing him wouldn't be good for your health."

He took a drink, then put the mug aside on a table. "I thought that since you'd be grieving for the girl in the alleyway, you might want someone around that also remembered her." Her face looked fragile but controlled; he watched her hands on the mug. They trembled, and she set her mug aside.

"Innocence lost? There wasn't that much to lose," she said quietly.

"You know that's a lie, for both of us. Whatever we were on the outside, we were innocents compared to what we know now." He took her hands in his, making her look up at him. "If you want me to leave, I'll go. But if you want me to stay ..."

Just let me in a little, enough to give you back some of the warmth you've given me when my own world was crashing around me.

He looked better than last year, when she'd nearly had to kill him to make him want to stay alive. She knew he wouldn't ask her how his lost family was doing without him. That door was shut. At least he'd had a family to lose, more than she'd had when she found herself in Section. She felt the broken pieces inside her fall into place, reassembled, perhaps even a little stronger.

"Do you suppose we could review some of the talents you use on missions? I mean, I was your supervisor."

"Nikita, no. I don't need that kind of excuse to stay." His hand came up to caress her face, to brush away the tear that she couldn't control. "Just for tonight, let's not be cold ops, or Section personnel."

Just human, just two friends sharing warmth on a cold wet night.

"That's so dangerous," she whispered. "Feeling like that again."

"I know. That's why we can do it -- we both know the price we pay." He had to ask the next question, though he wasn't sure he wanted the answer. "Do you still have someone?"

She nodded. "Walter -- and Birkoff. But they've been in Section so long. They don't remember what you and I remember."

Freedom to come and go, without orders. To enjoy the sunshine, to walk down a street without a mission, to fall in love with the handsome guy on the next streetcorner just because he smiles at you. Freedom to live an ordinary life.

"Are you assigned here now?" she asked. "Do you have someone?"

He shook his head. "Nobody that matters. I'll be here for a while, don't know how long. There's been a shakeup, and teams are being reassigned. I don't know if I'll be working with you or not." A grin came and went. "We're talking shop again. Let it go, Nikita." His hands on hers felt warm. "Can you remember anything good before all this?"

Her words came slowly. "A spring day, in the country. There was a farm near my grandmother's house. Violets growing near the woods, and daffodils, and the warm sun on a rock near a stream."

"I think I remember that day. Let's go there."

She stood and he came up with her, still holding her hands. She leaned forward to kiss him, gently, and the kiss blossomed into more.

***

The watcher in the rain saw two people in the lighted apartment rise from the sofa and stand close. Eventually one of them turned off the light.

He could still smell the scent of that towel on his fingers, even in the rain, as he turned and walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> This story, as with the others in the Gamblers' Choice series, departed from canon during Season 2 and has continued onward since then; it was written in 1999.
> 
> _Dark Star_ is the student movie created by John Carpenter, George Lucas and others while they were in film school; it is very silly.


End file.
